Care-full and collaborative: researching youth, ostomies, and everyday life

This fellowship builds on my PhD research which explored the everyday lives of young people with an ileostomy or colostomy. This fellowship ensures my PhD has impact within academia and the communities I researched with. The four aims of the fellowship, and objectives to meet these aims, are as follows: Aim 1: write publications for an academic audience Objective 1: I will write three journal articles based on my PhD. Paper 1 explores how young people with an ostomy negotiate “young people culture” in relation to alcohol-oriented activities. The phrase came from interviews with participants who described negotiating expectations about what they ‘should’ be doing as a young people and how this compares to their desires and capacities. Paper 2 focuses on how young disabled people’s relationships with others are made through digital spaces, for example via social media. This is important in an increasingly digital world where people seek advice, friendship, and connection through their digital devices. Paper 3 focuses on the importance of doing collaborative research with community organisations as an early-career researcher. I will draw on my experience of working with GetYourBellyOut during my PhD and will make recommendations about the design of future Postgraduate Research. This paper will inform a proposed workshop with ECRs about care-full and collaborative research. Aim 2: Impact workshops Objective 1: This funding will extend the impact of the ‘What I Wish I/You Knew’ toolkits I made as part of my PhD through a series of creative workshops. I will co-facilitate in-person, online, and asynchronous zine-making workshops with 'patient-led' disability organisations and activists focused on ‘What We Wish You Knew’ about life with chronic illness. I will digitalise these zines. Objective 2: I will organise two creative workshops (in-person and online) with bowel-illness organisations and healthcare professionals which will allow me to develop a guidance document and easy-read report about improving support for young people with an ostomy. Objective 3: I will engage with Liverpool-based NHS organisations through a seminar series about the impact of language choice when supporting young people with an ostomy. Aim 3: Write and submit a funding proposal Objective 1: I will develop a funding proposal for a 3-year postdoctoral project. The proposed project will focus on youth, chronic illness, and austerity as an understudied but important line of research. I will work with disability organisations to amplify the experiences of young people across the North West living who experience stigma due to the messiness of their chronic illnesses. I will draw on relationships made during the 1-year fellowship and develop methodologies from my PhD and my roles as Research Associate. Aim 4: Develop my career in academia Objective 1: Moving to University of Liverpool will provide new opportunities to engage with teaching, training, and to work with new colleagues and organisations. Objective 2: I will attend and share my work at three academic conferences. At one of the conferences, I aim to chair a panel session on disability and chronic illness to establish a network of people with shared research interests. Objective 3: I will co-edit a Journal Special Issue on children and young people's geographies of poo.